In the wake of LGBT Pride Month, we move on to Disability Pride Month and National Ice Cream Month in July. How come the celebration of our nation’s birth gets only one day on the Fourth of July?
Scores of other causes get a full month either by presidential proclamations or simply the pronouncement of some organization. September gets 14, like National Honey Month and National Yoga Month. I didn’t find any for December with Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, and Festivus (see, “Seinfeld”) presumably clearing the field. If we cut the length down to a week, they could fit in hundreds more.
LGBT Month has its roots in a Gay Pride march on June 28, 1970 in NYC. A year earlier on that date, a brutal police raid of the Stonewall Inn, a gay night club in Greenwich Village, set off a week of protests that became known as the Stonewall Riots. That set in motion the Gay Rights Movement. In 1999, President Clinton officially declared June “Gay and Lesbian Month.” In 2011, President Obama expanded it to the whole LBGT community. Don’t be surprised if it becomes a national holiday with government workers taking the day off.
Homosexuality is as old as humankind, although gays and lesbians have been historically denied societal approval and respect. Their battle for public acceptance and basic rights in America was finally won, deservedly, in the 21st century. As a sense of how recently that was, even President Obama still publicly opposed same-sex marriage until 2012, about the same time public opinion shifted in that direction.
Perhaps the assertion of gay pride is not as much about pride in their sexual orientation as it is a clear declaration that there’s no shame in it. By the same token I’m not “proud” of being heterosexual, it’s just my orientation, not an achievement.
Initially, the gay rights movement was limited to just three initials, LGB (B for bisexual). In keeping with the current political tactic of “intersectionality,” a movement gains clout when it expands its membership. So, LGB has become LGBT, with the inclusion of transsexuals. As an infinitesimal fraction of the population, the T doesn’t add much clout.
The movement is also known as LGBTQIA+ which stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual. The + sign leaves the door open for other categories to be added in the future, with 18 letters in the alphabet still available, excluding H for heterosexual. (That might be too inclusive.)
Interestingly, some LGBs are offended and argue Ts are an unworthy addition to their alliance since LGBs are about sexual orientation, not gender or psychology. And the LGB sexual orientation doesn’t require disfiguring surgery or a new wardrobe.
Transsexuals suffering from gender dysphoria are dissatisfied with the biological and anatomical gender they genetically inherited from their birth parents. Surgically altering their bodies doesn’t change their XX or XY chromosomes. A trans man is still a woman, and a trans woman is still a man, no matter how they “present” themselves or “identify.”
I wish T’s no harm. If they choose to live that way, it’s none of my business. But I regard their premise as an affront to science and common sense. I’m not intimidated by the militancy of their progressive enforcers, won’t be bullied into using their long list of transsexual contrived personal pronoun preferences, and will never ungrammatically say something like “Who do they think they is.” I’m outraged at public school educators who steer confused, immature, impressionable young kids in that direction without their parents’ knowledge or consent.
It’s notable that most transsexuals are males presenting as women. I don’t know why. Some are frauds, like a young boy who wants to ogle girls in their locker room. Or opportunists like male-to-female Renée Richards in the late 1970s, a mediocre tennis pro who had better success switching to the women’s tour. Men who present as women should not be allowed to compete against actual women in sports where they have a physiological advantage. (Spelling Bees are OK.) I won’t alter my vocabulary to substitute “menstruating person” for “woman.” I’ll never replace mother with “birthing person.” “Sex assigned at birth” is a contrived term to pretend you can transform your gender. Billions of people on this planet who hold religious beliefs would say sex is assigned by their God. At birth, it’s simply a recognition of anatomical reality. Newborn male babies don’t demand pink diapers.
Dustin Hoffman, in the movie “Tootise,” wasn’t a T, he was just a man pretending to be a woman in order to land a role in a TV soap opera. And Corporal Klinger in “M.A.S.H,” dressed like a woman only to get out of the Army.
Longtime KOA radio talk host and columnist for the Denver Post and Rocky Mountain News Mike Rosen now writes for CompleteColorado.com.
